also: I was offered a job at the "The London School" for around $500 plus accomodation. has anyone heard of it? I have an MA in TESOL from a US uni - is this a decent offer given the cost of living in this particular city, my qualifications, demand for teachers, etc?

Sounds good. I'm not in that area but if it's outside of moscow that sounds like quite a reasonable offer. The MA might not increase the offer much in outlying areas. It should help in various ways (respect of native colleagues for instance).

Hmm, I'll have to go looking. Maybe I should bring my own turtle. Like in Blazing Saddles: "Nobody move or the N***** gets it!" And I'll have to try not to be distracted by the curious questions when I pull out my entirely too big swiss army knife and start looking for the right blade. "Hey, I've never seen one that big! How many tools do you have on that thing anyway?

Welcome to Russia, Dan! Or could someone actually have the audacity to fashion an entire country experience as a troll?

There's a gym in the Embassy that's open to non-Embassy employees. I'm uncertain of the requirements, but you have to be either an American or affiliated with an American company. I'll warn you now though that the fees for non-Embassy employees are steep and you pay for a whole year in advance. Other fees include deposit and you pay for your own background investigation. It's perhaps one of the nicest gyms in Moscow.

Dude! You guys have a weight room in there? It really is just like a prison!

I guess it makes sense, I just never would have put the two thoughts together.

There was a weight room in the basement of my building. Soviet style public fitness "club." Maybe a little like a YMCA weight room. I never quite figured out how to use the place, where to sign up, etc. But I believe it was free or extremely inexpensive. There were also some wiry old guys playing ping pong like they meant it. Dan versus the wiry ping pong playing old guys. I wouldn't give him good odds. They're fast and they know how to work together, and they have the staying power.

I was wondering how Dan would find the weight lifting community here. Would probably make an interesting contrastive sociological study. I imagine a lot of them got into weights in the military (compulsory service). Pretty much all the guys I know are student types (one of the dodges) and I doubt they lift weights. So it'd be a window on a different world for me.

I'd be interested in hearing about the scene here. Dan, dare to lift weights with the locals, it should be interesting. Though you might meet some interesting characters in the embassy.....

How far is Sochi from Moscow, anyway? (interesting, that instead of simply looking at a map I use all this technology to ask someone else to look at a map).

Haven't you ever seen the Embassy? We have our own city block (almost). Atleast 75% of the city block belongs to the US and it's a very big block at that.

For a number of reasons your thinking is a bit flawed on why Russians take weight lifting serious.

1. Look at all the other countries that have compulsory military service. I lived in Italy for 3 years the men are about as big as the women.
2. I don't know the numbers, but many Russians tell me very few Russians living in Moscow actually do their service. They pay money to doctors to say they're medically unfit. Despite so many of them not doing military service, they're still pretty big guys.
3. Look at most men in the American military. And these are people that volunteered for the military.
4. Although I don't actually know this, or have even asked a Russian this, but I doubt they are even provided good facilities (or even nutrition for that matter) to stay in good shape. Ok, I just asked one and she said "mostly no."

In order for me to call my response good constructive criticism, I should come up with an alternative answer to why Russians lift weights more than most others. But I don't have an answer.

The only thing I know about Sochi is that it's a resort. I heard that it's a lot like Crimea, but the sea is very dirty there.